Prosecutors ask court to deny Luigi Mangione's bid to block death penalty

Muri Assunção, New York Daily News on Apr 15, 2025

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Federal prosecutors in Manhattan say Luigi Mangione’s motion to stop the government from seeking the death penalty is premature and not supported by legal authority.

On Tuesday, Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky filed a response to a motion filed by Mangione’s defense team last week seeking to block the death penalty in the case against their client.

Mangione is accused of stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel in the early hours of Dec. 4.

Earlier this month, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the Justice Department would seek the death penalty against the 26-year-old Ivy League grad, calling the murder a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America”

On Friday, Mangione’s attorneys filed a motion seeking to keep the death penalty off the table, noting Bondi had “explicitly stated” that she had issued the directive to “carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”

Defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo argued the move was “political, arbitrary, capricious (and) a breach of established death penalty protocol.”

“When the United States plans to kill one of its citizens, it must follow statutory and internal procedures,” Friedman Agnifilo wrote. “Mangione seeks Court intervention now not merely because the Government has failed to follow these procedures but because it has abandoned them.”

While the high-profile defendant has yet to be indicted in federal court, he’s currently being held in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn based on a criminal complaint charging him with four counts — including using a firearm to commit murder — which could carry the death penalty.

On Tuesday, in response to the defense’s letter, prosecutors asked the court to deny the motion, arguing the case has not yet been indicted and the government has not filed a formal notice of intent to seek the death penalty.

“A defendant who wishes to challenge the legal propriety of the death penalty may do so at the appropriate time (after indictment) and in the appropriate forum (before the assigned District Judge who will preside over the case),” prosecutors wrote in their response.

Mangione faces charges in three separate jurisdictions: Pennsylvania State Court, New York State Supreme Court, and the federal court in Manhattan.

His next federal hearing is scheduled for Friday.

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